Loving

18 Jun

Although the title refers to the Loving family, and their bid to keep their marriage intact, it could also convey the emotional heart of the film.

In the late 1950s in the US state of Virginia, the Lovings are put on trial for their interracial marriage. Richard Loving, a white construction worker, falls in love with Mildred Jeter, a black woman. When she becomes pregnant, to avoid going against their own state laws, they go to Washington to get married. When they return to Virginia they are arrested for breaking the local miscegenation laws. They only manage to avoid jail on the condition that they stay away for 25 years.

However, on returning to Virginia to have Mildred’s baby, they are once again arrested, but again the charges are dropped. Eventually, through Robert F. Kennedy they contact the American Civil Liberties Union in an effort to have the miscegenation laws overturned. By 1967 the case goes as far as the Supreme Court where their fate and that of other couples is finally decided.

Jeff Nichols both wrote and directed his film and in this true story has produced an extremely moving account of the hideous racist practices that were still prevalent in the US even up to the late 1960s. He has cast his actors with insight and achieves terrifically humbling performances from Joel Edgerton as Richard and Ruth Negga as Mildred. The ordinariness of these two peoples’ lives stands against the scandalous treatment they received from the authorities and their own community, when all they wanted was to bring up their family in peace.

MICHAEL DARVELL

Cast: Joel Edgerton, Ruth Negga, Marton Csokas, Nick Kroll, Michael Shannon, Will Dalton, Terri Abney, Alano Miller, Jon Bass.

Dir Jeff Nichols, Pro Ged Doherty, Colin Firth, Nancy Buirski, Sarah Green, Marc Turtletaub and Peter Saraf, Screenplay Jeff Nichols, based on the book The Loving Story by Nancy Buirski, Ph Adam Stone, Pro Des Chad Keith, Ed Julie Monroe, Music David Wingo, Costumes Erin Benach.

Big Beach/Raindog Films-Universal Pictures.
123 mins. USA/UK. 2016. Rel: 3 February 2017. Cert. 12A.

★★★★

Michael Darvell

Michael Darvell trained as a librarian at Watford and in Surrey before joining Ealing Libraries where he became Music Librarian for the borough. He edited Masthead, the magazine of the University of North London School of Librarianship, The Surrealist, the staff magazine of Surrey County Library, and contributed to the Assistant Librarian and London Librarian professional journals. A freelance film reviewer since 1970, he has written for Film, Films Illustrated, Film Review, Movie Maker and Radio Times, as well as editing Montage, the London film societies magazine, for ten years. A change of career saw him joining What’s On in London as Features Editor and he eventually stepped into the shoes of the late F. Maurice Speed (founding father of Film Review annual) as the magazine’s Editor. From 2007 to 2015, he was co-editor of the Film Review annual with Mansel Stimpson. As well as writing about films, Michael has reviewed theatre for The Stage newspaper, and has written about music theatre and cabaret for the Classical Source and Musical Theatre Review websites. He is also a former restaurant critic for the ViewLondon website. Michael has been a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle since 2005.

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